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Memorandum on design : How you look at a rose or apple
When I begin to design something, I try to find symbols and motifs in the environment around it, and I ponder their significance. For example, when designing a vase or a fruit dish, I think about flowers and fruit, and the woman I love. They (the flowers, fruit and the woman too) have their own destinies. An essential destiny. Or maybe a destiny that has been shaped and formed by someone else. I try to think about this as carefully and as deeply as I can. And discover new destinies. I want my designs to bring a bit more happiness to those destinies, and to do that, I think about the forms, space and stories that are required.
We often use beautiful flowers and lovely fruit as metaphors for the women we love. When someone is sick or when we love someone, we send them bouquets and baskets of fruit. A ring of roses taught a young man about love; an apple taught humanity about sin. More than anything else, these are things that are with us, quietly at our sides throughout the day.
They are deeply intertwined into our lives, our histories and our emotions. Whether they want to or not, they sacrifice for us, giving us their lives and their energy. They teach us about eternal love and reason. They bring temporary delight and respite to her heart, phases of our lives, our windows, our tables and our spaces.
How can I use form to pay respect to that sacrifice? What kind of form can embody the compassion contained in the delicate gesture of a woman arranging flowers or picking up fruit? What kind of stage is required to bring about this new kind of etiquette? What is the form that is required to read and understand this new flower language? Can we come across new shades and tones of color that express it? What kind of a dream must be dreamed? How do we respect their sacrifices in words that cannot be written and colors that cannot be named? How do we respect the many questions that they raise? What is our responsibility? What is the role of the vessel? What kind of design achieves that in practical terms?
A solution pops up. I begin to think about vessels that contain flowers and fruit in ways that celebrate them.
I provide for them a place that is noble and difficult to breach. A vase or a dish that sits on the table with sufficient breadth and height. Either physically or metaphorically. Perhaps the form can be sought in structures and decorations of the holy spaces of the ancient past, the temples and churches of the West, the synagogues and mosques of the Middle East, the temples and shrines of the East. Maybe we can find a motif in the smoke rising from a rural farmhouse or a canal flowing through a city. They can all be metaphors for height and breadth. How heartwarming to see a bouquet peeking out from the chimney of a wood-burning stove!
Let me state clearly that I am not trying to personify these objects through my designs. Humans have their own dignity and value, as do flowers, as does fruit. No one has the right to infringe on that. The important thing is not to become too serious. Especially not when you are using a portentous word like "dignity" in your title. You must always leave space for irony and humor. Ultimately, the objective of my design is to bring smiles to the faces of the people I love.
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